Thread: Melbourne Tool Company

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

... We are both partially correct, See Schedule C at the link below,

d) a foreign company licensed to trade in Australia; or
e) an owner of an Australian Registered Trade Mark; or
...
A full list of entities eligible for .au domains can be found here,

Domain Name Eligibility and Allocation Policy Rules for the Open 2LDs (2012-04) | auDA

Thanks, Mobyturns, it seems that it may be even more open to manipulation than you imply:

1. Clause 1.3 provides for grandfathering of old domain names which may have been issued to foreigners, and
2. Anyone can buy a $2 company and use it to register a domain name - Schedule C.1-a, and
3. Anyone can be an applicant for an Australian Registered Trade Mark - Schedule C-1-f.

The latter is particularly "amusing" in that you only have to be an applicant. I could apply to trademark the Coco-Cola logo, knowing that it would never be granted, but I would still comply as an applicant. Patently ridiculous, but I am not a legal draftsman.

Originally Posted by GraemeCook

Thanks, Mobyturns, it seems that it may be even more open to manipulation than you imply:

1. Clause 1.3 provides for grandfathering of old domain names which may have been issued to foreigners, and
2. Anyone can buy a $2 company and use it to register a domain name - Schedule C.1-a, and
3. Anyone can be an applicant for an Australian Registered Trade Mark - Schedule C-1-f.

The latter is particularly "amusing" in that you only have to be an applicant. I could apply to trademark the Coco-Cola logo, knowing that it would never be granted, but I would still comply as an applicant. Patently ridiculous, but I am not a legal draftsman.

Have faith in the system.

I really can't understand the "secrecy" over the publication of the legal entity behind a retail website. MTC is not alone in that respect. Have a look at the many websites associated with wood working. Why? Surely if you have a great product you want customers to know who you are and to associate that product with your business and that they association of quality will extend to other products you market.

Originally Posted by Mobyturns

Have faith in the system. ...

... I really can't understand the "secrecy" over the publication of the legal entity behind a retail website. MTC is not alone in that respect. Have a look at the many websites associated with wood working. Why? Surely if you have a great product you want customers to know who you are and to associate that product with your business and that they association of quality will extend to other products you market.

Me either.

I have bought a Melbourne Tool company low angle I am quite happy with but am unable to compare it to other planes as it is the only low angle plane I own

Originally Posted by VikingCode

Thats the bit that got me a bit frustrated too. I think "Australian Designed" would have been OK (maybe 'less bad'), but specifically calling it "Melbourne Tool Company" implies a lot more local involvement. With no ABR registration for MTC, two of the three words in the name are pretty questionable!

my mind goes a million directions with this as in the US, we've got branding to imply things from tool companies to bulk goods/warehouse stores, and harbor freight, of course, with fictitious names that have geographies or cadences made to sound like older brands.

The most direct of these for me is the fact that I live in Pittsburgh and when I go to HF, I will often buy "Pittsburgh" tools. Well, sometimes, not often, but I've done it.

Nothing is sacred here or really anywhere else, so there's nothing to do but ask specific questions and get answers in writing if possible. If you ask questions verbally, people will just lie to you, and sometimes they do in writing, anyway.

Also common here is to HQ a company and have distribution and "inspection" at a location so that when you search the company, you'll find the name and maybe even be able to google map to the location of the HQ, but the magnitude of domestic vs. foreign will be very difficult to find.

One of the other funny side swipes is something like chicago pneumatic (good quality tools) and harbor freight's naming of tools as "chicago electric". CP tools aren't really something you'd find on the ground, and it was a long time before I realized that they were a legitimate quality brand. I thought maybe they were just harbor freight's parallel air tool brand (ingersoll rand and snap on and sioux and such are more commonly seen in commerical environments - i think sioux has long since been sold to williams or snap on or - I think those are both the same as I've gotten plenty of bahco from williams).

An example of fibbing - I asked stew mac (a used to be family owned guitar parts place that is now not that and is full of imported junk at high prices) if their "parsons street" pickups were made in the US, with a link to a specific humbucking pickup that's OK, but was about $75. For context, a US made version of the same from someone else would've been about $90, and inexpensive korea or chinese versions would be $20-$40. it seemed odd that stew mac would have a better price than established US makers who are pretty competitive and that they'd somehow be able to make them or have them contract made given their habit of having prices much higher on other things and pricing a lot of chinese copy tools the same as japanese or american tools they swapped out. )

For context, parsons street is the street that the old gibson guitar company was located at before they left their original plant in 1984. So the whole name is intended to make people think of Gibson without getting sued by Gibson, who wasn't at parsons street any longer, anyway, but does seem to have active lawyers). When I asked stew mac where the pickups were made, they flatly told me in email that they're made in the US. I bought one.

I later found out they've never been made in the US, and upon installing one, they're about as good as a $35 korean pickup. The professional techs on a large guitar forum mentioned that they're chinese origin, but stew mac is good at not mentioning anything at all about origin on the packaging, and it may be because they claim that the sales are intended to be business to business and not consumer.

Long story short, ask until you find out, share what you find out and always keep ears open to find out something different.

We get used to ethical operations like LV and Lie Nielsen and sometimes it doesn't pay to fall asleep at the wheel and assume that we don't have mattress-salesmen-turned-tool-brand-owner types taking advantage of that.

I navigated through the melbourne tool company page - someone should ask them who the woodworkers are in melbourne who did the collaboration.

The page reminds me of "pancake syrup" in the US in terms of authenticity. that's a term used in packaging that looks like maple syrup to sell refined sugar products to people who don't want to pay for maple syrup. Before the internet was around, we assumed that they were the same thing and one was just ritzy and expensive.

Maple syrup is always pretty expensive given what it is and the strict controls on being able to use that term (it's dehydrated maple syrup water tapped from a tree), but "pancake" or "table" syrup can be from a 20th to half as expensive, depending on how gullible the customer is when buying browned corn sweeteners.

Long story short, the pitch reminds me of that. They could be good planes, plainly posting the facts was beyond the brand and it leaves you wondering if someone really wanted to make tools or if they hired out the writing to someone who sells things like MVMT watches ($5-10 quartz watches that are $150+ and often "go on sale). It has that kind of feel.

The site then links to timbecon and the timbecon site calls the irons M2. They may be, or they may be HSS that's a little short of it, but still good.

some of the same bro-narrative exists in it, touting long edge life and limiting vibration, as if older planes had any issue with either (beginners might, but the planes don't).

M2 is probably the steel of choice because it and the "almost M2, but we saved a few pennies on some alloying elements" are inexpensive in china, and in its favor, it's a decent steel from ingot (doesn't have to be powder metal to be reasonably fine). However, I did find the HSS irons that I tested just as a reference point to be pretty coarse grained compared to what m2 should be, possibly due to poor distribution of carbides for a number of reasons. it still works fine as long as it's hard, which is important, because it isn't always. and no spec is provided.

I've had chinese HSS irons that tested 66.5 and others that will sharpen easily on oilstones that are softer than almost anything I've seen. All of them were specified as being 61 hardness in the sale listing. I don't think any have ever actually been that.

Interestingly, the sale page refers you back to the product site for more information, which just puts you in an endless loop.

I like how they refer to wood as "material".

You can plane "figured material".



All that said, can you imagine how much harder and more labor intensive it would be to make a plane (or a quartz watch) in the US or australia, and how much less profitable it would be? $350 AUD seems like a "proud" price, as people around here say.

"boy, look at the price. they're proud of it, aren't they!"

Originally Posted by IanW

A well-tested business model, of course, but one does get the impression the ad copy is deliberately obfuscating by playing up the "designed in Australia" part & not mentioning the rest. I'd like some information on what 'design' was necessary (other than the shape of the lever-cap, which is different from the Luban/WR lot), and why they should be considered in any way superior to the rest of the pack. They may well be, for all I know, but there is nowt on either website to persuade me of that....

Cheers,

Which is funny because R&D for such a plane you're essentially copying is a few hours of work in a CAD program and a bill of $2000 to be legally allowed to say... And burying where they're made... My take is they're trying to deceive me. True or not, that's what I think and would be not too interested in going any further.

The low angle jack is $350aud. A veritas direct from Lee Valley is 245USD plus shipping. For my money, which may not be your budget or level of tolerance for crap tools, I'd buy the veritas for a $100 more. Or try to be patient and find a used on online...

YMMV